The Application Allows COELIG to Schedule, Track, and Monitor Mandatory Employee Ethics Training Compliance on an Individual Level

Remember - Ethics Training is for Everyone!

The second phase of the Statewide Ethics Training Application (SETA), the first statewide ethics training application of its kind, is live and ready for agencies and the Commission to use to ensure that all state officers and employees are in compliance with the annual ethics training requirements mandated by the Ethics Commission Reform Act (ECRA),  Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government Executive Director Sanford N. Berland announced today.

Today’s milestone marks a vital step in ensuring all state employees receive required annual ethics training by enabling the Commission and agencies to track ethics training compliance at the individual level on a single platform. The SETA application provides COELIG and agency ethics officers with the ability to schedule employees for mandatory trainings, monitor their compliance, provide them with required reminders and notifications, and track and report all of this at the individual employee level.

“Education is a key element in realizing the Commission’s vision of a state workforce that exemplifies the highest ethical standards, a key step in fulfilling the Commission’s mandate to foster public trust in government,” Executive Director Sanford N. Berland said. “The Training Application is a crucial asset in meeting ECRA’s thirty-fold increase in the number of state officials and employees required to receive ethics training every year.”

“Every state employee must abide by the state’s ethics laws, and training is integral to ensuring that employees know their responsibilities under those laws,” Chair Frederick A. Davie said. “The Training Application is the first data application of its kind to make it possible to track and monitor compliance with training requirements at the individual employee level. This enables the Commission and agency ethics officers to ensure that all executive branch employees are fulfilling mandatory training requirements. The Commission congratulates COELIG staff on achieving this important milestone, and we thank our partners at the Office of Information Technology Services (ITS) for their exemplary work in developing such a remarkable application.”

Development of Phase 2 of SETA

The Commission and ITS worked in partnership to develop Phase 2 of SETA. In addition to extensive system development work by ITS in conjunction with COELIG staff, today’s milestone entailed identifying the 320,000 statewide employees mandated by Executive Law § 94 to receive yearly ethics training so that SETA could be fully populated.  (Phase 1 of SETA, which facilitated the reporting and collection of aggregate training information at the agency level, was introduced in February 2024.)

The goal of phase 2 is to transition COELIG training staff and agency users (Ethics Officers, Training Compliance Officers, and Agency Contacts) from reporting agency-wide aggregate ethics training totals to an application that combines the automated capture of individualized training data from an array of sophisticated learning management systems (LMSs) with the reporting of training compliance on an individual employee level by agency users. This will allow COELIG and agencies to target their communications and trainings based on training status at the individual employee level.

Data-sharing agreements to date have made it possible to initially populate the application with required information for over 200,000 employees in more than 245 state agencies, and staff is working on securing like agreements with additional agencies. Once the application is fully populated, COELIG will be the first ethics agency able to identify and communicate, both directly and through agency users, with all state officers and employees who are required to complete mandatory annual ethics training. 

More information for agency Ethics Officers on the Statewide Training Application can be found on the Commission’s website.

About the New York State Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government

Created by New York state law in July 2022, the Commission’s charge is to restore public trust in government by ensuring compliance with the state’s ethics and lobbying laws and regulations. It has jurisdiction over more than 320,000 officers and employees at state agencies and departments, including commissions, boards, state public benefit corporations, public authorities, SUNY, CUNY, and the statutory closely affiliated corporations; the four statewide elected officials and candidates for those offices; employees and members of the state Legislature and legislative candidates; and state and local lobbyists and their clients.

The Commission administers, enforces, and interprets New York’s ethics and lobbying laws by providing information, education, and guidance regarding ethics and lobbying laws; promoting compliance through audits, investigations, and other means; issuing formal and informal advisory opinions; and promulgating regulations implementing the laws under its jurisdiction.

The Commission promotes transparency by conducting its proceedings publicly to the fullest extent permitted by law and by making the financial and other disclosures filed by those subject to the Commission’s authority publicly available. These disclosures include, but are not limited to, annual financial disclosure statements filed by over 30,000 individuals, and millions of records contained in activity and expense reports filed by lobbyists and their clients.

The Commission, at full complement, consists of 11 members with staggered four-year terms nominated by the Governor, Senate Temporary President and Majority Leader, Senate Minority Leader, Assembly Speaker, Assembly Minority Leader, Comptroller, and Attorney General. The Independent Review Committee, comprised of the deans of the state’s 15 accredited law schools, determines, based upon stated criteria, whether nominees should be confirmed for appointment.

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